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Your recent reports of the torture of Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib military prison near Baghdad, while shocking, are part of a larger pattern of abuse and torture at the hands of U.S. soldiers, mercenaries and intelligence agents around the world.
In fact, U.S. Army intelligence manuals advocating torture techniques and how to circumvent laws on due process, arrest and detention were used for at least a decade to train Latin American soldiers at the U.S. Army's School of the Americas, renamed in 2001 the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation or WHINSEC. The SOA/WHINSEC, widely known as the School of Assassins, has trained over 64,000 Latin American soldiers in combat skills and psychological warfare. Graduates are consistently linked to human rights abuses and atrocities in Latin America. In September of 1996, the Pentagon, under intense public pressure, released the classified training manuals. The Washington Post reported that the manuals promoted "executions, torture, blackmail and other forms of coercion against insurgents." They also recommended the imprisonment of family members of those who support "union organizing or recruiting," those who distribute "propaganda in favor of the interest of workers," those who "sympathize with demonstrations or strikes," and those who make "accusations that the government has failed to meet the basic needs of the people." The training manuals are available on the SOA Watch Web site.
As reports of abuse at the hands of U.S. and U.S.-trainied soldiers, from Latin America to Guantanamo Bay to Abu Ghraib, continue to surface, the Army continues to distance itself from the abuses. Officials often claim the soldiers involved in torture are "just a few bad apples," but as instances of human rights violations continue to grow around the world, a much larger picture of systematic abuse becomes clear.
Our presidents and members of Congress act surprised even as they support a foreign policy based on "the ends justify the means." The means include abuse, torture and death.
I assume your Page 1 item on May 7 was in error. "Muslims offended: Islamic scholars say it's hard for non-Muslims to grasp how deeply shocking the prison abuse photos are."
I assume you meant to write: "Christians offended: Christian scholars say it's hard for non-Christians to grasp how deeply shocking were the pictures of the Muslims burning and dismembering and hanging from bridges our American civilians working in Iraq."
Our military may have unclothed some prisoners, but we did not dismember them or incinerate and kill them. Possibly a rewrite is in order.
The recent information, with pictures, about the torture of Iraqi detainees does not surprise me in the least. And, as it always does, a culture in any organization comes down from the top. President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have all been involved in "enemy formation," which is an intentional dehumanization of other human beings in order to kill or hurt them, without remorse.
The tough talk, the snubbing of the Geneva Conventions, and the United Nations, and the threats to all the "terrorists" that we will come and get them and kill them are all ways to increase the anger of the country to justify the war in Iraq. Sane human beings cannot torture or kill other human beings unless they believe that the "others" are subhuman, the enemy. Well, when the president has declared that people who are rounded up by the thousands are "terrorists" and "thugs," how easy it is to treat them as nonhuman! But there is a little problem: None of these people has been formally charged, none has been given a chance to defend himself against what may well be mistaken charges! How can Americans condone that Bush and Rumsfeld get to play God?
They and they alone get to designate who is or is not a "terrorist"? I think that that is what is missing in all this talk about the tortures. These thousands of detainees, including the ones in Guantanamo, have been designated by our imperial president to be bad guys, but how does he know this? He is lawless!
Naked soldiers! Please. Maybe they should have beaten them, then burned them alive and hung their bodies from a bridge!
How easily people forget.
Bush and his political ilk have cultivated the appearance of Iraqi savagery in order to solidify his support base by creating ambiguity as to whether Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks. This in turn has created a desensitizing of Iraqi humanity. Couple this with the above mentioned confusion on the 9/11 changing of rules and we are circa Vietnam where native lives could be clinically written off as collateral damage.
The problems in Iraq will not abate unless President Bush lays down to the troops a cohesive set of morals and principles concerning the treatment of indigenous populations that cannot be subject to chest-thumping, "Bring 'em on!" interpretation. Unless President Bush brings to bear the full weight and measure of moral authority against those that are confused as to whether abusing detainees or free citizens is appropriate or not, then we as Americans will have raised the standards not one millimeter higher than Saddam Hussein set concerning the treatment of his population.
Re: Front page picture of Iraqi prisoner.
What the soldiers did at the Iraqi prison is despicable, and the St. Petersburg Times publishing these pictures on the front page of the paper is incorrigible. I recommend that all subscribers let their subscriptions run out. And I ask the person who allowed this picture to be published on the front page how to explain it to children?
We have seen no more than the tip of the iceberg, so far, in the exposure of our mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners. A few little guys are being made scapegoats, but it is safe to say they were acting with the knowledge and probable encouragement of superiors who were careful to stay out of the photographs. The breaches of humane legal standards were surely known also by top brass, whose failure to intervene indicated approval. Their judgment was very bad, first in ordering or permitting the bad pattern, and then in either doubting that the atrocities would become known or thinking that the American public would shrug them off.
Though suspecting that we will never learn the complete truth, I most strongly condemn our military and political leaders for disregarding basic democratic values and for further exposing our country to international scorn.
The International Committee of the Red Cross is also to be condemned for neglect of its responsibility to assure that prisoners are handled decently. Knowing of widespread abuses for over a year, they should have gone to the very top when their early complaints were ignored. I fault them for failure to go public when repeated efforts were in vain. Is it conceivable that the ICRC can be intimidated by government and/or other interest groups?
When George Bush said, "What took place in that prison does not represent the America that I know," it would appear that he has never heard of Frank Valdes. It's a good bet that his brother has, though. Maybe he'll tell George.
Frequently in Iraqi culture, if a woman is sexually abused she is either cast out of the family or killed in order to "restore the family's honor." I don't think this standard applies to males in this culture, and rightfully so. No human being, whether man or woman, Iraqi or other nationality, should have the horror of this experience compounded by the tragedy of being cast out or killed. I hope that this appalling chapter in Iraq's history can be met with compassion and care for those abused, both women and men, now and in the future.
I was appalled by the Iraqi prison atrocities graphically depicted on your front page and elsewhere in your paper. However, I am also appalled that you have failed to present the good our soldiers are doing while they are on foreign soil. If you chose to display on your front page at least occasional pictures of the kindnesses of our troops toward the Iraqi people - the daily sacrifices they have made to defend, protect and provide for them, and the many ways they serve with honor - your newspaper would, indeed, be fulfilling your stated policy to tell the truth - the whole truth.
Abuse in Iraq? Do we all forget the pictures of the men hanging from the bridge with the crowd acting like it's a holiday, dragging the bodies through the streets laughing like its a joke?
Where is the comparison?
I'll take a leash without any clothes compared to that.
Again we're the bad guys. Typical oranges to apples. But it sells!
I read your articles on the systematic abuse of Iraq prisoners who are and have been in the "care" of our military. I think it is shameful how they have been treated. However, I really don't understand all of the international fuss over it. Straight, Inc., based in St. Petersburg, systematically abused thousands of children in its "care" over the course of 17 years. The abuse the children suffered at Straight was far worse than anything the Iraqi prison have experienced and no one was held accountable.
At least in the case of the Iraq prisoners those responsible for the systematic abuse will be held accountable. Why? Because they have the support of governments across the globe. And we saw that the U.S. government tried to hide it!
Straight, Inc., has the support of the U.S. government, and the victims of Straight have no recourse, no international outcry. I read one Iraqi prisoner's account of his abuse at the hands of the Americans. He said: I can no longer go home as I am too ashamed.
The victims of Straight can no longer go "home."
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